AAP - Investment in Australia's oil and gas industry could...

AAP - Investment in Australia's oil and gas industry could decline as companies that provide drilling, engineering and construction services reallocate their skills to work with national oil companies, a survey says.
National oil companies are shifting from allowing foreign ownership of reserves to utilising service contracts, as the price of oil increases, according to a survey by professional services firm KPMG.
International service companies now have the opportunity to expand their business model from being specialist contractors to operating entire projects on behalf of national oil companies.
"In the context of the global oil and gas industry, Australia is a small component, and if service companies reallocate their resources to large NOC [national oil companies] opportunities and projects, the potential exists that the Australian industry will suffer," KPMG's Brent Steedman said.
Australia's oil and gas industry relies on international service companies to provide specialist expertise to find reserves and bring it to market.
"We are already struggling with the skills shortage so this could be a real threat to the local industry," he said.
National oil companies, which include Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, Iraqi National Oil Company and the National Iranian Oil Company, control 72 per cent of the world's oil reserves